The Inquirer’s coverage of women claiming to have been ordained priests is unfortunate and unbalanced. The headlines for the ceremonies ("Act of defiance," Aug. 1, and "Female Catholic priest has first Mass," Aug. 7) were inaccurate and misleading. An "organization" may have "ordained" the women, but the church did not. A "female Catholic priest" is not a validly ordained Catholic priest. Whatever words may have been spoken, they did not constitute the celebration of a valid Mass.
The church encourages women and all the faithful to use their gifts for the good of the community. But the church is not authorized by Christ to confer holy orders upon women and cannot do so, no matter how ardent a person’s desire may be.
While the former story was placed on Page One and the latter on the front of the B section, The Inquirer offered scant coverage for two significant events in the archdiocese. A mere six sentences were printed for the July 26 episcopal ordination Mass for Philadelphia native Bishop Daniel E. Thomas. Not a single word was printed for the July 28 emotional farewell service for Bishop Michael F. Burbidge prior to his installation as bishop of Raleigh, N.C.
The contrast between invalid ceremonies given strong emphasis and valid ones given little is an offense to faithful Catholics within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Donna Farrell
Director of communications
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Exactly right. The press goes all gooey-eyed over invalid ordinations and ignores or hardly notices valid ones.
3 comments
A case of “Dog Bites Man” vs. “Woman Bites Church” I guess. I expect the Inquierer to go tabloid any day now with stories of alien abductions and drag queen bingo populating their pages. I think somebody should talk to their lawyers because I’m not sure how much longer they can call themselves a newspaper and not be sued for false advertising.
I’m in the same area as Tim–we suffer under the same anti-Catholic newspaper. If it hurts the Church they’ll leap on it. The Inquirer ran a series last spring on the Church and for the part where they surveyed locals, they printed only the most dissenting, cultural-only, ultra-progressive, fallen away Catholics they could find. I was embarrassed for myself, my parish, my wonderful pastor and parochial vicar, the other good priests in the Archdiocese, the Archdiocese in general. Those people were hardly a representation of Catholics in the area.
I can’t believe this is what they think people want to read.
Whoever hungers to justify his or her own dissent will indeed hunger for just this sort of news. Our newspaper does print the views of Catholics, but only if they are extremely Liberal or extremely (to the point of foaming-at-the-mouth) Right Wing. By this means, non-Liberal perspectives are always “proven” to be irrational. Or so I have noticed recently.